UN envoy says Yemen national talks will resume amid crisis

Yemen will resume national talks over its future, the U.N. envoy to the country said Sunday, just days after Shiite rebels dissolved parliament and formally took power.

Those talks Monday will include Abdel-Malek al-Houthi, whose Houthi rebels stormed into the capital, Sanaa, and elsewhere in September before besieging the president and seizing total control of the Arab world’s poorest country on Friday, envoy Jamal Benomar said.

“I am happy to announce to you that all political parties have agreed to return to the table of the dialogue,” Benomar told journalists at a Sanaa hotel. “The United Nations is committed to take Yemen out of this crisis.”

Benomar did not elaborate.

The Houthis are under mounting domestic and international pressure. Late Saturday, the party of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh — the Houthis’ main ally — added its voice to the growing opposition to the takeover and called for a return to the dialogue moderated by Benomar.

On Sunday, provincial leaders in Maarib east of Sanaa decided that they would resist any attempt by the Houthis to seize the energy-rich province east of Sanaa. The Houthis have been preparing a campaign to capture the province, but the emergence of a strong tribal alliance there as well as a heavy presence by al-Qaida’s branch in Yemen have dissuaded them from pressing ahead.